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Unsettled

It’s late April, and our weather is still very unsettled. Every day brings something unexpected – we have wind, rain, hail, sun, all within the space of an hour or two. Yesterday the sun was shining beautifully, the mercury rushed up to 75 degrees, but the wind was howling like November. After the long difficult winter, we need spring to settle in so we can all relax.

More than the weather is unsettled, too. I’ve been fretting about a dear friend and her teenaged son who are going through some very difficult times. For some while now, he’s been having emotional problems, and they are culminating in some very painful circumstances for the whole family. My friend is such a good mother, such a caring, responsible person, with all the same hopes and dreams we all have for our first-borns. And yet I’m fearful that those will never be realized, and that life will always be a struggle for this boy of hers whom she loves so much.

Although they haven’t gotten a definite diagnosis, Dr. Becca’s five-cent’s worth is that it’s Asperger’s Syndrome. The signs are all there, and if I think about it, have been there since he was small. Obsessiveness, lack of eye contact, difficulty engaging with other people, outbursts of anger. Now that he’s a teenager with the tumultuous changes inherent in that stage of life, all these symptoms have converged to create havoc in the poor kid’s head.

My dear friend tries so hard to be practical and upbeat while maintaining a grip on reality. Yet when she refers to her son as “my boy,” the catch in her throat makes my mothering heart ache. So when I awoke again to another day of heavy, wet, oppressive skies and then heard the sound of pouring rain pounding the roof, I couldn’t help but shiver a little.

Unsettled.

How about you? Is your world on an even keel these days, or are you feeling unsettled too?

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10 thoughts on “Unsettled”

When I read about heavy, wet oppressive skies and the sound of pouring rain, I could just weep, we need it so badly.

It’s been nearly two weeks since Governor Perry asked for a federal disaster declaration. It still hasn’t come, no doubt because of political maneuvering. It’s a little hard to declare your desire for independence from the feds, as he did, and then ask for help.

Still, hundreds of thousands of acres are destroyed. There are dead cattle, no grass, and whole towns being evacuated. The volunteer firefighters are exhausted.

Tornados are terrible. So are fires. I guess you’d say we’re unsettled.

My early spring flowers have valiantly popped up but are being beaten down by the rain and wind – poor things. I’m so weary of winter – if I could just shut off the furnace – it’s been running since October! At least I still have a roof over my head. I feel so so badly for the folks who have been hit by tornados. What an awful thing.

I feel unsettled. Transitions–even positive ones–are tough. I’m in our lovely new home, and I still feel a little bit sad. I registered Dillon for Kindergarten today. I think the neighborhood school will be just fine… but I’m looking for a sign, some reassurance, that we’re exactly where we need to be. I sense we will move again, sometime in the future, and that concerns me, too. It’s hard to balance necessary transitions with the desire to be rooted in something… something good… that never changes.

What IS with the weather? At least today is sunny if cold — too cold for April 29, but who is complaining after all the rain. I’ve been distersed for several weeks — So many people dying in too short a time, and some so seriously ill. Cancer. Surgeries. Just so darned distressed. It’s hard — seeing something you can pretty well nail descriptively, yet the label is one thing, living with it another. My heart is aching for your friend, remembering more than one occasion of knowing someone dealing with something similar. And for you — because yes, it’s terrible to feel unsettled.